UK: Brewhouse control system upgrade at Coors Brewers' Alton Brewery

FMA have completed a major turnkey project involving a complete upgrade of the brewhouse control system at the Coors Brewers' Alton Brewery - which brews Carling, the UK's best selling beer, English media communicated on May 02.

Leading brewery process control and management information technologies specialists, FMA, of Lichfield, UK, have completed a major turnkey project involving a complete upgrade of the brewhouse control system at the Coors Brewers Alton Brewery - which brews Carling, the UK's best selling beer. With an on-going commitment to ensuring correct corporate governance across all its breweries - a policy designed to make certain that its business remains robust and even the slightest risks to process and production are eliminated before they can provide cause for concern - Coors selected FMA in light of their long pedigree of providing the brewer with well-proven, highly robust solutions - and their detailed understanding of the Coors 'Right Way to Upgrade' strategy. Involving all aspects of process control, from material intake through to wort separation, the FMA task involved replacing the existing PLC 3 and six T30s with a new Rockwell ControlLogix and iFIX solution.

The existing PLC software was copied to the new ControlLogix PLC, whilst the iFIX system was built from the ground up and based on a similar installation recently completed by FMA at Coors, Burton-on-Trent Brewery.

As part of the upgrade, 48 existing Eurotherm controllers were replaced with PLC control and existing control desks were replaced to cater for the iFix system.

In addition to bringing the Coors Alton Brewhouse Control System in line with that employed at Burton-on-Trent, in order to benefit from conformity of approach, this latest FMA solution provides enhanced reliability and removes the threat of systems obsolescence.

Minimal downtime.

Working within a tight shutdown window (production downtime was limited to just two weeks), the FMA remit involved removal of the old system, implementation of panel modifications, installation of the new PLC and iFIX system, dry testing and instrument configuration.

Marked improvement in production quality.

Following wet testing of process plant, including CIP validation and several water brews, the first production brew was successfully undertaken on time, with a managed increase in brews over the first few days.

The brewhouse was back in full production at the start of week 2 and FMA continued to provide 24-hour cover for 5 days.

Performance validation carried out showed a marked improvement in production quality due, in large part, to a consistent approach to production.

To allow for changing shift patterns, and to cause an absolute minimum of inconvenience, the training of engineers, technicians and operators was spread over a 10-day period.

The original Alton Kegline PLC providers Established in 1981, FMA has successfully undertaken numerous projects in the brewery, soft drinks, dairy and food manufacturing industries both at home and overseas.

Only last year, FMA completed a major upgrade of the Kegline Control System at the Coors Alton Brewery.

By pure coincidence, the Lichfield-based specialist was also the original installer of the process plant pasteuriser on the Alton Brewery Kegline and provider of the Allen Bradley PLC 3s that had become ready for upgrade.

As an ISO9001 accredited business and holders of the TickIT software and application-based standard, FMA are acutely aware of the need for quality in all aspects of system design and see their own internal standards and procedures covering the design, implementation, validation and testing of the systems they supply as a key differentiator for them as system integrators in the food and beverage market place.

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